Saturday, September 9, 2017

the pesky algorithm...

A lot of YouTubers have rightfully been on a rant lately about YouTube's new overly zealous politically correct algorithm that targets videos it deems "not suitable for all advertisers".  This began in early August after the ad-apocalypse that happened in March .  I just got the dreaded yellow dollar sign again on yesterday's upload.  This has happened on 4 of my videos now.  Two of them were released after I requested a manual review and my "skinning a rattlesnake" video is still barred from any further advertising revenue.  Every one of my videos is well within their Advertiser-friendly content guidelines  - but this new process has a twist to it.  Once a video is flagged by their system, they will not do a manual review (actually have a human assess the content) unless the video gets over 1,000 views in 7 days.  Hopefully, "how the day ends" will get reviewed and pass so I can make a few dollars off of it.  Stay tuned...  83,86,66,0,B

18 comments:

Judy said...

Um, exactly what is 'wrong' with "the day's end" video? Or for that matter skinning a rattlesnake?

Dale said...

Our faux puritanism had decided skin is a dirty word and the snake lol if it's longer than it's wide it's a phallic symbol thanks to Dr Freud.

remmij said...

did they give a reason?
… am guessing companies like  & YouTube/Google/Alphabet/XXVI Holdings Inc. object to
showing landlines of old - or any reference to their existence - only mobile devices that can carry
advertising, track, modify behavior & control activity will be condoned moving forward… kidding, just kidding…
dang I've been de-monitized/existenceized
""Don't be evil" is the motto of Google's corporate code of conduct, first introduced around 2000."
one take of the situation - Philip DeFranco

remmij said...

the 1000 views/7 days bar is a novel/arbitrary way to suppress/filter review requests.
another possibility for the yellah$ - it would indicate a fairly granular level inspection of the video…
the disparity with MX might have been a reason too… 180 centavos vs 440 centavos
they may have thought you were supportive of that economic cross border oppression… with the stickers

PewDiePie - 57 million subscribers, 462,332 likes, 6,298,585 views posted 9/08/16 … language waring
there's a dilemma…

Ronald Mahan said...

Poor snakes have gotten a really bad rap ever since the Adam ate that apple in the Garden of Eden. And everybody knows it was all the work of the Devil. And now - Dale wants to further tarnish the snake reputation by spreading the myth that they are a "phallic symbol".

B S ! They are just an animal that crawls on its belly - not having any appendages to help them get around. But God in his wisdom gave a lot of them - poisonous fangs to defend themselves & obtain their food.

And some like the Terlingua Ranch Rattlesnake ( which John Wells skinned and preserved the hide) are really dangerous critters - when alive. Although some people may regard them as a "phallic symbol - . it is highly doubtful that any women would want to sleep with a live rattlesnake?

Todd said...

Ronald: This is a profound observation. How rare is the female willing to share her bed with a rattlesnake! I don't think she exists!

My old lady certainly won't tolerate any rattlesnakes in the sack! Hell No!

Margery Billd said...

Some people keep rattlesnakes for pets so that could be upsetting to them.

Margery Billd said...

On a show a woman had a poisonous snake (several) in her mobile home and one got out and killed her. True.

Larry G said...

Okay... so I can see how the rattlesnake video was tagged (not saying I agree ) but how do subsequent videos without that kind of content get "tagged"?

do they tag subsequent videos from the same source that did the one they did not like?

So everything that now comes from John is "tagged".. or have I got that screwed up?

John Wells said...

Larry G... no one knows for sure how the analytics works other than it has gone overboard on searching for non PC content. A large number of YouTubers that get hit certainly deserve it because they blatantly break the community guidelines. I have no idea why only a couple of my videos got targeted. Doing a quick search of YouTube, there are a lot of videos on skinning snakes and none of them appear to be monetized...including this one. https://youtu.be/v5rLX9n079U

Larry G said...

John - I think we might be doing too much "us against them" with the PC stuff. I can easily conjure up a LOT of DISGUSTING things , inhuman things.. to put on a video to upload without ever once thinking it's "political" ... so .. "we" - a LOT of sites besides YouTube are exercising what boils down to some kind and variation of censorship.. despite the fact that few if any of us say we support it. ... we do... child porn, "snuff" videos, suicide stuff... slaughterhouse stuff.. beheadings.. etc.. complicated and in my mind - way way beyond mere "PC"... but I certainly don't like your videos that would offend no one being "tagged" from the get go... that's not right... Oh.. the other thing.. YouTube and others is a "Private" service - and the censorship is not Govt but Private, right?

John Wells said...

remmij... Philip Defranco has been a popular presence on YouTube for over 10 years and has over 2,000 uploads, over 5 million subscribers, and over 2 billion views. I followed his channel for awhile when I first moved out here but got tired of his "potty mouth". He posts 5 days a week and every video gets well over 1 million views. A number of his videos get demonetized because he discusses topics and uses language that obviously violate the guidelines. He has earned well over a million dollars off his channel and it is unfortunate that he thinks using the F word helps to make a point. The funny thing is, a number of YouTubers that got hit recently posted expletive filled rants about the subject - hardly a mature reaction.

John Wells said...

This really isn't about censorship. This is just Google going a little overboard trying to keep advertiser dollars rolling in by weeding out the bad players - and there are a lot of them. YouTube has every right to set guidelines (none of which I think are unreasonable) and police the content they allow on their platform. While they seem to be going on a demonetization frenzy lately, only the worst of the worst actually get "censored" and have their videos taken down and/or are banned from posting on YouTube.

John Wells said...

Update: As of this morning, (surprisingly) the yellow dollar sign was turned back to green again so "how the day ends" is back in business with content deemed advertiser friendly. So far it has earned 19 cents!

Larry G said...

Glad to see you're back to GREEN.. and wish I better understood how you got a "yellow"!!!

Who knew that somewhere in the bowels of GOOGLE there were REAL people looking at those videos and giving a thumbs up or thumbs down or a "yellow" or "green" label!

remmij said...

think the videos are machine filtered - the power of AI/Big Data - the last figure I saw was 300+ hours of content uploaded every minute…
one portal to Google's 'bowels'

#3

coffeeinjection said...

Hey John,

I have a channel doing political commentary and stuff. I no longer use monitize video's or use adsense.

If you get enough subs,. Get a Patreon thing going. That's what I plan to do in time.

John Wells said...

I have a problem with most of the people who use Patreon... also known as E-begging.